


Love is a Losing Game

by RegallyWickedThirteen



Series: Wasn't Expecting That [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Missing Archer, This one is angsty, get tissues ready, really angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:47:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25746103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RegallyWickedThirteen/pseuds/RegallyWickedThirteen
Summary: Robin has been gone a year, Regina still misses him dearly. Sometimes, in her times of need, his ghost appears, and even though he can’t speak to her, it grounds her. She visits the grave, as often as she can, and the kiddos always tell stories to keep their fathers memory alive. (Missing Archer)
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills & Henry Mills, Evil Queen | Regina Mills & Roland, Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Robin Hood, Robin Hood & Roland (Once Upon a Time)
Series: Wasn't Expecting That [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1752094
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	Love is a Losing Game

**Author's Note:**

> Get the tissues ready because this one is basically all angst. The good news is that I decided to combine almost all of the angsty ones into this fic, so this is the only one where Robin dies. 
> 
> That said this made me cry writing it. 
> 
> Prompts covered 5. Regina can see Robin’s ghost but he can’t speak back to her. 68 Regina visiting Robin’s grave. 30. Regina telling Peanut stories about her father to keep his memory alive. 
> 
> This also forms Day 4 - Thursday of OQ Prompt Party 2020

Regina wakes with a pounding in her head, and her heart. He’s gone. Forever. She’s not sure how to process it, not sure she wants to. That’s when she hears the familiar sound of music seemingly drifting in through the window. Apparently her ‘gift’ (she can hear songs in her head based on what people are feeling, this is only the second time she’s heard her own thoughts through song) only works when she’s lost someone she loves. Fabulous. She has to laugh at the song the universe has chosen. If she didn’t she’d cry. 

How do you measure a year? 

In daylights - highlighting how beautiful the world could be if he was still here. 

In sunsets - Robin’s favourite part of the day. 

In midnights - the time when Regina would decide to finally sort out his wardrobe, emptying it, grabbing his favourite shirt, and then crying herself to sleep. 

In cups of coffee - the only thing that kept her going for the first few weeks, months. 

With that she slams the window shut and the music fades. 

It’s been one year. 

One Year since he promised her a future he never got to see. 

Twelve months since his very soul had been obliterated, along with part of hers. 

Three hundred and sixty five days since she’d had to say goodbye to the person she thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with.

Five hundred twenty five thousand minutes wondering if this pain in her heart would ever subside. It doesn’t - not completely. She will always miss him, until the day when it’s her time to finally join him again. 

///

There is something unimaginably cruel, almost taunting about a grave, it is a reminder of what could have been, what should have been. It offers a false sense of permanence too. It’s the closest you can be to them, but they’re still a world away. You visit knowing that it won’t be enough, that it will make you angry all over again, miss them that little bit more. Yet it is the only place that allows you a minute to breathe, to cry, to grieve in a world that keeps spinning without them. 

She’s visited the grave every week. The first week was the worst, she’d been living, surviving in a daze, doing all she could to just keep Roland, Henry and Elizabeth Marion (peanut was still her nickname), fed and trying to answer any questions they had - difficult when she couldn’t make sense of it herself. It hadn’t felt real until she’d visited the grave, traced his name with her fingers. It quickly became too much. She needed him, now more than ever. She cries, let’s all the pain and the anguish out, leans against his grave, imagining it’s her shoulder - the coldness that permeates down her back is the biggest tell tale that it’s not. She’s sat there for what only can only be a few minutes before she swears she feels something touch her face, wiping the tears away. 

It’s a trick of fate. 

It is him - he’s pale, the light in his eyes is dimmer now, it’s still him though. 

“Robin” 

He can’t speak, but he hears her and reaches out to her or maybe it’s just her mind, she doesn’t care. 

“I MISS YOU. I miss you so much. It’s not fair. You should be here, planning a future, laughing with your kids, doing the laundry all wrong. Some days I want to hate you - hate you for leaving, even though you had no control. Some days I hate that I love you. Other days I know that no matter how much I’m hurting, I’ll learn to live without you, because you taught me to never give up” 

He looks at her, with that unfairly handsome smile, and even though it’s not real, he’s not real, it helps to be here ‘with him’. 

She feels something inside her, a warm handprint on her heart, she takes a deep breath, she needs to leave soon, but she’ll remember him, them like this, with love in their eyes. 

///

It becomes almost a ritual after that, visiting his grave, 

The second week she brings a bottle of whisky Robin had stashed in the cupboard - she makes a toast to him, to them, to their family and then she breaks down, wishing she hadn’t been so stubborn and taken him up on that offer of a drink, a long time ago. 

It’s a question she should stop taunting herself with - what would they have done if they’d had more time? 

Apparently Robin in this spiritual form can also read her thoughts, or maybe she said it out loud but he smiles after that, and then he guides her to the top of the hill that the graveyard is situated on, and they spend a few minutes looking out at Storybrooke and beyond. Robin had bought her here a few weeks before he died - to visit her fathers grave with her, and they’d stood here - he’d said to her then (just as he probably wished he could say now), that there is never enough time, not when it comes to the ones you love. 

He’s always been wise, had a way of reaching her, in a way no one else could. 

After the third week she makes a promise to herself that she will try and be more positive, she’s let grief and anger consume her once before, and while she knows those feels are valid (If Archie wasn’t getting his money out of her before he sure as hell is now), she doesn’t want to let it consume her- because Robin wouldn’t want that. 

She’d gone back to the office for the first time since he died that week, she knew that the longer she left it the more painful it would be, but that didn’t make it any easier. 

Snow had graciously agreed to go with her, while Emma looked after the kids. It felt as if the walls were closing in, crushing her, she had to force herself to take deep breaths, everything reminded her of him, of that night. They’d been so naive, so hopeful, why she wasn’t sure they had absolutely no idea what they were going to do, and it had cost him his life. Snow, miraculously doesn’t say anything, doesn’t offer a hope speech, she just stands by Regina’s side and it’s something she is very grateful for, it grounds her, it’s that warmth presence that she needs. She looks around the room and tries to remember the good times - the picnic they’d shared a few years ago, where she’d been so nervous, so excited. She remembers him telling her that true love's kiss didn’t work, because he was in love with someone else. Her. She remembers him at the end, looking scared, but reaching out for her, until the very end. 

She tells him all this and he just sits and listens. 

The weeks after that are spent telling him about the kids. 

Henry has been incredible - helping with Roland and Peanut, he’s distracted them, played with them, told them all kinds of exciting stories. He misses you dearly, he was going to ask you to be his dad at Christmas, wished he’d asked you sooner - but I told him that you knew how much he loved you, just as he knew you loved him. 

Roland keeps asking where you are, and it breaks my heart every time I have to tell him that you’re gone. For a week or so every time the doorbell went he thought it was you, every time he realised you weren’t there would bring a new set of tears. He’s a little better now - he understands you’re with his mama. He’s asked for mr fox back - says that when mr fox is with him, it makes him safe. 

Peanut is too little to understand, she knows something has happened though, it took ages to get her to sleep that night - she wanted to be resting on your shoulder I think. She looks like you - has those gorgeous dimples. 

We all tell stories of you to her, Roland’s favourite is about you and him going on a bear hunt in the forest. 

He doesn’t remember the whole story. He likes the bit where it goes WE CAN’T GO UNDER IT, WE CAN’T GO OVER IT, WE’LL HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT. Peanut gurgles away and her smile lights up whenever Roland does the actions. 

Henry tells her that her daddy is the bravest person he knows, He tells her that her daddy gave up things to protect her - he’s growing up so fast and it’s a little bit scary. He also tells her that your favourite ice cream flavour was Mint Choc Chip. He tells her that you had the best smile, that it lit up a room, but that you could also be really silly and told the best stories but the worst jokes. He tells her how you helped him when he was nervous about asking Violet out on a date and that despite a little bit of teasing (I don’t think I was supposed to hear that bit).   
I tell her stories too - I tell her stories of the thief I told not to get in my way, but did anyway. I tell her of the man that made me believe that I am the furthest thing from a monster, the person who made me feel alive and worthy of happiness. I tell her how you loved the woods, how you convinced me that camping was not as horrendous as I first thought - I also told her how I still much prefer a hotel. I tell her that her father loved, loves her, and that he’s always with her, with all of us, in our hearts. 

///

It’s the anniversary of their first kiss, when Regina had decided to stop being haunted by her past, decided to stop wasting time on fears and tears, to just live with her whole soul. 

Their kiss was perfect, and it said more than any words ever could. 

Afterward Regina had been slightly embarrassed, not because it wasn’t good, because it was too good, and she wanted to be happy, but she also needed to get her heart back and defeat Zelena. 

Robin had smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear before guiding her to a nearby fallen log. 

They spent the rest of the evening snuggling by the campfire and watching the stars. Regina was mesmerised by them - their beauty, their light, and the stories behind them. 

Stargazing became one of their favourite activities to do - especially when the world became too much and they needed to refocus. 

She wishes she could kiss him just one more time, but here looking at the stars she knows he’s there with her.  
///

The next day Regina sat down on the back porch, cradling Peanut, and told her the stories of the stars - pointing out all the different constellations, she pointed to the brightest one and said whenever you see that star that means that daddy is watching you, and guiding you. 

///

They all visit on his birthday, it’s weird and they all feel that little bit more raw, Roland made a card which they left by the gravestone, it’s a picture of them all sitting in the clouds having a picnic. Henry lies an arrow on the grave - it’s one Robin gave him years ago that he’d kept, but probably would now never use. They’d all had some fun with painting their hands and making a flower print out of all their different handprints! Regina left a daffodil - they were Robin’s favourite flower - a bit of bright in the dark. 

It’s quiet and they all cry, but they know that he lives in their hearts. 

They go back and eat cake and watch The Lion King, Robin’s favourite disney film. 

///

It’s been a year and she’s learning to live without. 

She can go some days without unprompted tears and then others the smallest thing will set her off. 

She sees him in the kids he’s left behind - in looks, but also in personality, and knows that he’d be proud of the kind generous people. 

It’s been a long time since she’s heard him singing, but as everyone lays a single arrow on his grave she hears him, it’s almost a whisper, the words struggling to come out. 

“Can I show you what I’m proudest of” he says, their eyes meeting, as he scans his family. 

They share a smile, Regina and his ghost, Regina knows that this is the last time she’ll see him, for a while at least. She lets out a small, almost inaudible gasp, as he makes his way to the next world. 

There is never enough time. We have no control of who lives and who dies, but sometimes, if we’re lucky we find someone to tell our story. 

She knows then that Goodbye is not final. Goodbye is a moment of pause. It’s a break in the story. It’s a see you later. Goodbye means we’ll meet again, not knowing when, but knowing that you’ll meet again somewhere in the next world.Their story was short, too short, but that didn’t make it less epic, and it wasn’t over yet. Goodbye was their page 23 - the part of the story they were never destined to live.

**Author's Note:**

> Yell at me in the comments, I deserve it.


End file.
